Audiobook Review: Rules of the Game by Nora Roberts

Rules of the Game
Author: Nora Roberts
Narrator: Kate Rudd
Publication: Brilliance Audio (December 29, 2013)
Length: 6 hours and 36 minutes

Description: A story of stubborn wills and impassioned hearts from number-one New York Time best-selling author Nora Roberts.

Television director Brooke Gordon thinks that baseball player Parks Jones is an insufferable cad with an inflated ego. Unfortunately, he's also brilliant and her client's spokesman. Brooke is determined to ignore the intense attraction she feels while directing Parks in a commercial. But Parks is willing to break a few rules to convince Brooke that love isn't just a game to him. It means forever....

My Thoughts: Brooke Gordon has come from an impoverished childhood being shuffled from home to home in the foster care system to a very successful producer of commercials. Parks Jones was born with a silver spoon in his mouth but decided to be a professional baseball player instead of entering the family business. 

Brooke isn't eager to work with Parks when he is chosen as the spokesperson for a line of men's clothing but knows that she can get the best out of whatever talent he may have. She doesn't know anything about baseball and hasn't heard of the award winning third basemen. 

Parks is nearing the end of his career since he had already decided to retire by 35. With his team contending for the World Series, he is at the pinnacle of his career. When he first meets Brooke, he doesn't know that he'll soon be working for her and she doesn't enlighten him. 

Sparks fly when they work together but they make an excellent product and fall in love. Brooke is afraid to trust in him since she's been betrayed before, but Parks convinces her to take a chance on him since he's already completely fallen for her. 

A whirlwind marriage leads to some conflicts as they try to mesh their strong, stubborn personalities. It takes a California wildfire to let them see what their priorities really are. 

I bought this one March 13, 2026. You can buy your copy here.

Audiobook Review: Shattered by Dick Francis

Shattered
Author: Dick Francis
Narrator: Fiacre Douglas
Publication: Brilliance Audio (August 21. 2008)
Length: 6 hours and 23 minutes

Description: When jockey Martin Stukely dies after a fall at Cheltenham, he accidentally embroils his friend Gerard Logan in a perilous search for a stolen videotape. Logan is a glassblower on the verge of widespread acclaim. Long accustomed to the frightful dangers inherent in molten glass and in maintaining a glassmaking furnace at never less than 1800 degrees Fahrenheit, Logan is suddenly faced with terrifying threats to his business, his courage, and his life.

Believing that the missing video holds the key to a priceless treasure, and wrongly convinced that Logan knows where to find it, criminal forces set out to press him for information he doesn't have. To survive, he realizes that he himself must sort out the truth. The final race to the tape throws more hazards in Logan's way than his dead jockey friend could ever have imagined.

Glass shatters. Logan doesn't...but it's a close-run thing.

My Thoughts: Glassblower Gerard Logan finds himself in the middle of a mystery when his friend jockey Martin Stukely dies at Cheltenham. Martin had given his friend Gerard a videotape to take care of since he had a nosy wife and four curious children. 

Unfortunately, Gerard loses the tape when his shop is entered, and the tape and his day's take is stolen. What makes it even more unfortunate is that those who want the tape don't believe that Gerard doesn't know where it is. 

Gerard has two problems. The first is identifying who wants the tape enough to hurt him and search his home for it. Second, he needs to know what is on the tape. Finding it would be good too. He gathers friends as he searches including a new girlfriend in the form of the police officer who first appears to document the shop break-in and thefts. 

As he searches, he comes ever closer to answering all of his questions. But someone has to die before all the answers are found. 

This was another excellent mystery by Dick Francis. As in many, he builds a strong, smart hero. This one also had all sorts of interesting facts about glassmaking. 

I bought this Chirp audiobook October 3, 2025. You can buy your copy here.

Audiobook Review: Banker by Dick Francis

Banker
Author: Dick Francis
Narrator: Simon Prebble
Publication: Recorded Books (July 11, 2011)
Length: 9 hours and 59 minutes

Description: An investment banker arranges the purchase of a champion racehorse and gets caught up in murder in this New York Times bestseller that’s “fraught with violence, conspiracy and, of course, horses” (The Boston Globe).

Tim Ekaterin raised millions of dollars to finance the purchase of Sandcastle, a champion racer, only to discover an apparent defect in the horse. Investigating further, Ekaterin learns that the business of investment banking is nothing compared to the cutthroat world of horseracing—a world where violence and murder only raise the stakes....

My Thoughts: Written in 1982, this was an excellent thriller. Tim Ekaterin is an investment banker in the firm begun by his grandfather. He was raised by parents more interested in partying than banking. After his father's death, his mother's gambling habit drove the family into bankruptcy. His uncle agrees to bail his mother out if Tim works for the bank.

Not expecting much more than to fulfill his agreement with his uncle, Tim finds that he has the talent to be an excellent merchant banker. He is happy learning under his mentor Gordon and being quietly in love with Gordon's wife. 

When Gordon goes through a medication issue in his treatment for Parkinson's Disease, Tim takes over for him until he is ready to come back. During his time as head, he convinces his firm to lend money to a young cartoonist that several other banks have turned down. The cartoonist's quick and major success not only gives Tim confidence in his judgment but gives him the reputation as a lucky man.

An outing with the Chairman and Gordon and his wife Juliet to the horse races brings a new opportunity to Tim and the bank. Tim sees Sandcastle win a stunning victory and also meets and saves the life of a faith healer whose patients are horses. 

When a trainer comes to Tim to ask for financing to purchase Sandcastle to put him to stud, Tim convinces the bank to come up with the eight million that are needed. Tim spends time at the breeding farm and meets the owner's young daughter. He becomes friends during his frequent visits. 

When the owner calls some time later, he has a problem. It seems that Sandcastle's foals are showing a much higher than average number of birth defects. Sandcastle's problems as a stud threaten to not only bankrupt the trainer but cause a substantial loss for the bank too. 

Tim has only a short period of time to figure out if the problem is with Sandcastle or if someone is manipulating things for their own purposes. And when the trainer's young daughter is murdered the stakes go even higher. 

This was an excellent story. Tim is a wonderful main character who is both smart and honorable. The prose isn't flowery, but the emotional intensity is there. Simon Prebble did a wonderful job of bringing Tim Ekaterin to life. 

I got this one from Audible Plus. You can buy your copy here.

Audiobook Review: Reflex by Dick Francis

Reflex
Author: Dick Francis
Narrator: Simon Prebble
Publication: Recorded Books (August 31, 2011)
Length: 9 hours and 9 minutes

Description: Well-plotted and full of atmospheric charm, Reflex demonstrates the fine style that earned Dick Francis the title of Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America. This fast-paced story of a jockey’s courageous murder investigation exposes the politics and corruption at the heart of the British racing world. Philip Nore has no greater ambition than to successfully complete the last years of his career as a jockey, even if it means bending the rules a bit. But when pushed, Philip discovers that there really are a few other things that matter to him. One is finding the truth about the death of a much hated track photographer. Reflex showcases the author’s gift for creating heroes out of ordinary men. Simon Prebble’s distinctive voice, deep and mildly accented, is perfect for Francis’ work. His performance highlights the psychological drama and intrigue to deliver a positively exhilarating listening experience.

My Thoughts: REFLEX is one of my favorite books by Dick Francis. I love his heroes who are ordinary men dropped into extraordinary situations and who manage to triumph in part because of their strong moral characters.

Philip Nore is the hero of this story. He's an aging jockey and amateur photographer. He is coming to the end of his racing career which he fell into as a teen. Born to a drug-addicted seventeen-year-old mother who was thrown out of her home, Philip was raised by a succession of her friends making him helpful and resourceful and unable to form deep relationships. 

Philip has two main problems in this story. First of all, he is given a set of photographic puzzles when a successful race photographer whose work Philip admired but whom he personally disliked died in a car accident. Philip rode with the man's son and got involved when that man's parents' house was burgled during the funeral anad again later when the photographer's wife is beaten in a home invasion and when her house is burned down. 

Philip's curiosity is what starts his involvement. When he manages to solve some of the photgraphic puzzles, he learns that the photographer was blackmailing members of the racing world into good behavior. Philip is also attacked and badly beaten once it is learned that he has the photos.

Philip's second problem begins when a lawyer comes to see him to ask him to visit the grandmother who through his mother out because she is dying and wants his help. He is surprised to learn that his mother had another child, and that the grandmother wishes to leave her whole estate to the girl if he can manage to find her. Philip feels no obligation to help the hateful dying woman but he is curious to find the sister he never knew he had. 

All in all, I really enjoyed this story. I liked watching Philip go from a drifting unconnected man to one who has plans for his future after racing and a woman who loves and understands him. I liked Francis's spare prose and appreciate Simon Prebble's deft narration of the story. 

I used an Audible Credit for this one. You can buy your copy here.